REVIEWS

SFX CINEMA REVIEW
Reviewed by Nigel Floyd

Peter Jacksons follow-up the the harrowing Heavenly Creatures consolidates his reputation as one of the most innovative film-makers working in fantasy and horror.  Starting out as a Gothic, sfx-saturated comedy, it looks at first like a return to the knockabout side of Jacksons work, last seen in the ultra-gory but essentially slapstick Braindead.  Dessicated spooks and poltergeists cause bets to levitate, frying pans to whack unsuspecting husbands on the head, and gurgling infants fly in a holding pattern around the living room.  But when you've settled into this humourous groove, it suddenly changes tack and turns into a dark, disturbing horror movie about a serial killer who returns from the dead to up his already substantial body count.
        Charlatan, ambulance chasing parapsychologist Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) is in league with a trio of torured souls who are stuck in a spritual limbo between this world and the next.  In order to provide him with more business, hip 70's style black dude Cyrus (Chi McBride), creaky boned old-timer The Judge (John Astin) and nerdy bookworm Stuart (Jim Fyfe) scare the hell out of gullable Fairwater inhabitants.  Each time they leave a calling card with Franks name on it, so he can then move in and offer to rid their houses of the troublesome poltergeists.
        However, a chance meeting  with unhappily married doctor Lucy Lynskey (Trini Alvarado) leads Frank to troubled recluse Patrica Bradley (Dee Wallace Stone), a mother-dominated middle-aged woman who, as a teenager, was cleared of helping her hospital  orderly boyfriend Johnny Barlett (Jake Busey) to massacre a dozen patients and doctors at the local hospital.
        For fear of giving too much away, the bold submersiveness of the ensuing shift of tone can only be hinted at.  Suffice it to say, although this was executive produced by Robert (Death Becomes Her) Zemeckis and funded by Hollywood, it bears all the hallmarks of a film creatively controlled by Jackson.  So there's no soft-pedalling on the ugly aspects of violence, the obcenity of media celebrity or the cultural and psychological legacy of death and mass murder.   There are times when the plot resembles Franks' unfinished dream home, with holes in the fabric and loose ends left flapping in the wind; but if you can forgive the ramshackle constuction, the unusually credible performances and cleverly deployed sfx will carry you to an unexpectedly grim and disorientating finale.

B+